


Roman Isn't Okay

by callboxkat



Category: Sanders Sides, Sanders Sides (Web Series), Thomas Sanders
Genre: Angst, Dealing with Intrusive Thoughts, Gen, Head Injury, Hurt/Comfort, I may have added too much salt to this recipe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-19 17:11:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19361170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callboxkat/pseuds/callboxkat
Summary: Roman isn’t as okay after “Dealing with Intrusive Thoughts” as he pretends to be.





	Roman Isn't Okay

As soon as Remus was gone, it was like a weight lifted off of Roman. He groaned, finally pushing himself to his feet. The world tilted dangerously, his head pounding,

“Ugh,” he heard himself groan. Looking around at everyone as best as he could, Roman felt bitterness rise in his chest—the others could have just warned him and prevented all of this! Roman would have been on guard, and he could have stopped Remus from causing a lot of pain. To him _and_ to Thomas. “I can see now why everyone was reluctant to tell me what was going on,” he grumbled.

“Romaaaan!” a very familiar voice called.

“You’re alive!” Patton cried.

Roman did his best not to wince at the fresh stab of pain in his head. He remembered the past uncertain amount of time, lying on the floor with everyone talking like nothing was wrong. _You thought I was dead and_ that _was how much you cared?_

Thomas came into focus in front of him. He looked happy to see him back on his feet. “I love you!” he was saying.

…Okay. That helped a little bit.

Virgil looked briefly concerned. “Are you… good?” he asked.

Roman only allowed himself to hold his head for a moment before he quickly assumed his usual proper princely presence. His vision was still swimming, and he felt like he might be sick if he stayed vertical for more than a few minutes, but Roman was a good actor.

He lowered his hand to his side with a quickly banished grimace. “I don’t know,” he said. Which was honest, but… not actually what he’d meant to say. Whoops.

“Aww, are you hurt at all?” Patton asked, in that sweet, slightly patronizing voice of his.

What kind of question was that? Did the others really think that, _of course_ , Roman might be perfectly fine after being smacked up the head with his brother’s morning star? Roman felt bitter, but the feeling only egged on his nausea. He wasn’t Logan. He couldn’t logic his way out of injuries like he could. Roman was creativity, and right now his imagination was running wild with concussion side effects.

He sighed in exasperation, and he decided to lie. He did his best to act the part.

“My head’s fine,” he said, the body language alone involved in doing so enough to make his head spin. He couldn’t just not talk with his hands, though—the others expected it. And it was clear that they didn’t care that he was hurt, so why concern Thomas?

He was sure that the only reason Thomas hadn’t checked in on him before was because he was so overwhelmed by the other part of the imagination, and because he had been too tired to focus. (Right?)

“More than anything,” Roman continued, “I feel like I was struck by a realization. Like… Einstein with the apple.”

“You mean Newton?” Logan asked.

“Oh, shut up, nerdy Wolverine," Roman retorted on impulse, anger flashing through him at Logan's words. Pardon him for his head being a little scrambled! 

Then he stopped.

“No!” Roman cried out in frustration and regret, for he was not and refused to be like his brother. However judgmental Logan had been acting.

That hadn’t Roman talking, not completely. Stupid Remus, still affecting him. Their split back in the beginning hadn’t been quite perfect—they hadn’t originally been meant to be separate, after all—so they sometimes influenced each other, whether purposefully or not.

 “Oh, I mean—.” He sighed, taking a second to collect himself. “I’m sorry, Logan. I didn’t mean that.”

After that, some of the conversation kind of slipped away from him. He was having a hard time focusing. He just stood there with a smile and hoped it was an appropriate reaction.

“Smelly bums!”

Roman snapped back into the present, feeling almost like he’d gotten whacked on the head a second time.

Oh, _great_. Remus was back. Roman scoffed.

They argued briefly, but thankfully, this time Remus disappeared as quickly as he had arrived.

“Don’t like him,” Roman commented, annoyed. He desperately wanted to leave too, to just lie down in the dark somewhere, but now he had Thomas’s attention.

“So…” he was saying. “You have a brother?”

Roman sighed, stepping back to take his rightful spot directly in front of the television. He could do this for just a little longer. He did probably owe Thomas an explanation. “…Yeah,” he admitted. “It’s a little like looking into a fun house mirror. But instead of a giant head or, like, long legs and a tiny torso,” _You can do this, just a few more seconds_ , “it shows you everything you don’t want to be.”

“Doesn’t sound like a very fun house.”

“Yeah,” Roman said. Then, quickly, as the darkness started to creep in on his vision again, he added, “But—ah, wha-whatever, you know? He’s _gone_ now and he’s never coming back!” Obviously, that wasn’t true, but Roman sorely wished it was.

Thomas didn’t seem to want to let him have his fantasy. “Oh—I don’t think that that’s—”

“BYE!” Roman said loudly, sinking out fast, but still with his usual dramatic flair.

…

As soon as he was out of there, Roman let the façade drop. He rose up in his room and the action caused him to sway dangerously, everything going wonky for a few seconds. He caught himself and maneuvered himself over to the bed, one hand pressed to the lump on his head. He sat down hard on the mattress. He wanted to lay down more than anything, but he wasn’t quite sure that he wasn’t about to throw up. Roman wasn’t feeling very princely right now. Right now, he felt like garbage—usually a certain someone else’s territory. He closed his eyes and focused on keeping his insides where they were meant to be.

He couldn’t deny that he was hurt, emotionally as well as physically. Nobody had helped him. Nobody had even tried to warn him what was going on! He knew that Thomas was the priority, but no one had even seemed to care that he was injured. He had probably missed most of the conversation, but he knew. He’d vaguely heard his name a few times, but there hadn’t been worry in the words from what he could tell. They had just stood around and talked over him. Sure, the most important thing had been making sure Thomas was okay and figuring out how to get rid of the intrusive thoughts—or to better deal with them, at least. Roman had even tried to help, once he’d recovered enough to get out the words, even if his contribution had only amounted to telling his brother to shut up.

In any case, no one really cared that he was hurt. So, he would pretend not to be. The others had enough to deal with already. There was no need to make them feel obligated to help him.

Still, sitting there on the bed, mulling over what had happened, Roman felt like crying. But when the tears began to prick at his eyes, it only made his headache all the worse. He quickly willed them back. He just wanted to lie down and pretend that none of this had happened. More than that, though, he wanted someone here to rub his back and tuck him in and tell him he’d be okay.

Roman may be the prince, usually the one doing the rescuing, but sometimes it would be nice to have someone rescue him.

...

There was no sound when it happened, no change in atmosphere; and Roman’s eyes were still shut; so he didn’t actually see the other side appear in his room; but he knew the moment it happened. He reluctantly opened his eyes, watching the reptilian figure in front of him with a sluggishly annoyed glare.

“Begone, Deceit, I’m in no mood to deal with your tricks.”

Deceit raised his hands in surrender. “No tricks this time.”

Roman gave him another tired but skeptical look, as best he could with his head feeling like… well, like someone had recently smacked it with a morning star.

“No tricks,” Deceit repeated. His gaze looked almost soft—as soft as the dark side’s gaze ever looked.

Roman looked down in surrender, and Deceit lowered his hands. He swept the bowler hat from his head and pulled out a few items, like he was performing a magic trick: an icepack, a juice box, and a couple of pills.

“Take these,” he said quietly, approaching. “They’ll help.”

Roman gave him one more suspicious look before he scooped up the pills. He regarded the juice box for a moment, wondering if he’d be able to keep it down, but Deceit was staring expectantly at him, so he just swallowed the pills with a sip of the juice. Thankfully, they stayed down.

“Now lie down,” Deceit continued, vanishing the half-empty juice box. He kept the ice pack. “On your stomach.”

Roman obeyed, laying down among the pillows. He felt Deceit carefully place the ice pack against his sore head but couldn’t see him from this position. The deceitful side came back into view as he walked around to the side of the bed and crouched beside him.

“Are you alright, Roman?” he asked.

“Whadda you care,” Roman mumbled, his voice further muffled by the pillow his head was smushed into. His head ached too much for him to figure out Deceit’s angle. The nausea, however, had started to abate mere seconds after taking the pills, and the room was spinning a bit less. Mind palace physics were useful sometimes.

Deceit scoffed, putting a hand to his chest. “I’m not _heartless_. I just like to bend the truth a little. Is that so wrong?”

“Hm,” was all Roman offered in response.

“I care about Thomas’s self-preservation, and you are an important part of Thomas’s self. Therefore, doesn’t it carry that I would care about you? Besides, I don’t see any of the others here, helping you,” Deceit observed, inspecting the tips of his gloved fingers. “Clearly, you mean a lot to them.”

Roman sucked in a small breath, feeling like a shard of glass had pierced his heart.

Deceit dropped his hand, taking Roman in, then sighed. “Apologies, Roman. Old habits. I’m sure the others don’t care—I mean, _care_ about you. They just get a bit… selfish.”

“They were helping Thomas,” Roman said into his pillow.

“Exactly. And that is a very worthy cause.” Deceit got up from his crouched position and pulled up a chair, settling himself in it with the air of a rich woman at a cocktail party. “But I am sure that it still hurts that they abandoned you in your time of need.”

Well, yes. It did. Of course, it did. “Why are you here, anyway?” Roman asked, lifting his head just slightly off the pillow this time, to be better heard. The pounding in his head was starting to abate now, thanks to the pills and the ice pack.

“You lied,” Deceit said simply. “When you told the others that your head was okay. You didn’t really think I wouldn’t know about that, did you?”

Roman sighed.

“Anyway.” Deceit shook out a magazine as it appeared in his hands. “I’m definitely leaving if you want me here. So don’t ask me to stay.”

Roman watched him for a few seconds. Deceit’s eyes flicked in his direction, then back to the magazine. He licked the tip of a gloved finger (ew) and turned a page.

Roman was suddenly profoundly tired. He let his eyes slowly close, deciding that it would be nice to just sleep off the pain in his head. Deceit certainly wasn’t the ideal companion: as nice as he acted towards Roman, flattering him with platitudes, Roman was aware that most of the time, almost none of them were completely sincere. But right now, even if it was just the bump on his head talking, Deceit didn’t seem to be trying to manipulate him. Roman would trust him, just this once.

Perhaps none of the light sides had come to check on him after what had happened, but at least he wasn’t completely alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I’d really appreciate if you let me know what you think!


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